E/V5 


THE  YALE  REVIEW 


in 


THE 


YALE  REVIEW 

A  NATIONAL  QUARTERLY 

Edited  by  WILBUR  CROSS 


OCTOBER,  1921 

Ten  Years  of  The  Yale  Review       .      , The  Editor  xxix 

Castles  in  Spain         John  Galsworthy 


Asia's  Challenge  to  America 

The  Young  Dante  and  the  Dante  of  the  Comedy 

Maple.  Verse 

On  the  Writing  of  Novels 

The  Future  of  Our  Foreign  Trade        ... 

Two  Songs  for  Solitude.   Verse 

Protestantism  and  the  Masses 

The  Psychology  of  the  Radical 


Edward  L.  Parsons 
Benedetto  Croce 
Robert  Frost 
Sir  Harry  Johnston 
.  Francis  H.  Sisson 
.  Sara  Teasdale 
James  J.  Co  ale 
,    Stewart  Paton 


Shakespeare  Apart 'Tucker  Brooke 

Caput  Mortuum.   Verse       .      .      .      ...      .      Edwin  Arlington  Robinson 

The  Birds  of  Tanglewood Karle  Wilson  Baker 

The  Fall  of  the  Curtain Chauncey  B.  Tinker 

Books  and  Reading.   Verse         .......      John  Jay  Chapman 

From  Plutarch  to  Strachey        .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .     Wilbur  Cross 

Paradise  Negro  School Howard  Snyder 

Among  the  New  Books 


A  Major  Prophet 

Amy  Lowell  and  Other  Poets    . 
Critics  of  Contemporary  Drama     . 
William  James  in  His  Letters    . 
Ideas  on  Art  and  Life     .... 

Mystical  Medicine 

God-like  and  Satan-like 

The  Vogue  of  the  Printed  Play 

The  Air  Service 

A  Successful  Career 

The  Philosophy  of  Modern  Finance 
A  New  Era  in  Forestry  .... 
Whitman  as  Journalist  .... 
The  Rise  and  Fall  of  Navies 


.   Allen  Johnson 

William  Rose  Benet 

Stark  Toung 

Frederick  J.  E.  Woodbridge 

F.  Weitenkampf 

Knight  Dunlap 

.    Leo  Pasvolsky 

Helen  McAfee 

Edward  P.  Warner 

Moorfield  Storey 

Ray  Morris 

Henry  S.  Graves 

Emory  Holloway 

Robert  W.  Neeser 


etters  and  Comment 


Copyright,  1921,  by  THE  YALE  PUBLISHING  ASSOCIATION,  Inc. 

EDITORIAL    AND    BUSINESS    OFFICES:      I2O~5    HIGH    STREET,    NEW    HAVEN,    CO 


15 

34 
52 
58 
68 

77 
78 
89 

102 
117 

118 

130 

*39 
140 

158 


170 

175 

1 80 

182 
188 
190 
194 

197 
20 1 
203 
207 
209. 

212 
2I5 

218 


MAPLE 
BY  ROBERT  FROST 

HER  teacher's  certainty  it  must  be  Mabel 
Made  Maple  first  take  notice  of  her  name. 
She  asked  her  father,  and  he  told  her,  "Maple  — 
Maple  is  right." 

"But  teacher  told  the  school 
There's  no  such  name." 

"Teachers  don't  know  as  much 
As  fathers  about  children,  you  tell  teacher. 
You  tell  her  that  it's  M-A-P-L-E. 
You  ask  her  if  she  knows  a  maple  tree. 
Well,  you  were  named  after  a  maple  tree. 
Your  mother  named  you.     You  and  she  just  saw 
Each  other  in  passing  in  the  room  upstairs, 
One  coming  this  way  into  life,  and  one 
Going  the  other  out  of  life  —  you  know? 
So  you  can't  have  much  recollection  of  her. 
She  had  been  having  a  long  look  at  you. 
She  put  her  finger  in  your  cheek  so  hard 
It  must  have  made  your  dimple  there,  and  said, 
*  Maple.'  I  said  it  too:  *  Yes,  for  her  name.' 
She  nodded.  So  we're  sure  there's  no  mistake. 
I  don't  know  what  she  wanted  it  to  mean, 
But  it  seems  like  some  word  she  left  to  bid  you 
Be  a  good  girl  —  be  like  a  maple  tree. 
How  like  a  maple  tree  's  for  us  to  guess. 
Or  for  a  little  girl  to  guess  sometime. 
Not  now  —  at  least  I  shouldn't  try  too  hard  now. 
By  and  by  I  will  tell  you  all  I  know 
About  the  different  trees,  and  something,  too, 


MAPLE  53 

About  your  mother  that  perhaps  may  help." 

Dangerous  self-arousing  words  to  sow 

In  a  child's  mind,  he  suddenly  perceived. 

Luckily  all  she  wanted  of  her  name  then 

Was  to  rebuke  her  teacher  with  it  next  day 

And  give  the  teacher  a  scare  as  from  her  father. 

Anything  further  had  been  wasted  on  her,  V 

Or  so  he  tried  to  think  to  avoid  blame. 

She  would  forget  it.  She  all  but  forgot  it. 

What  he'd  sowed  with  her  slept  so  long  a  sleep 

And  came  so  near  death  in  the  dark  of  years 

That  when  it  woke  and  came  to  life  again 

The  flower  was  different  from  the  parent  seed. 

It  came  back  vaguely  at  the  glass  one  day, 

As 'she  stood  saying  over  her  name  aloud, 

Striking  it  gently  across  her  lowered  eyes 

To  make  it  go  well  with  the  way  she  looked. 

What  was  it  about  the  name?  She  saw  its  strangeness 

Lay  in  its  having  meaning.  Other  names 

As  Lesley,  Carol,  Irma,  Marjorie, 

Signified  nothing.  Rose  could  have  a  meaning, 

But  hadn't  as  it  went.  (She  knew  a  Rose.) 

This  difference  from  other  names  it  was 

Made  people  notice  it  —  and  notice  her. 

(They  either  noticed  it,  or  got  it  wrong.) 

The  problem  was  to  find  out  what  it  asked 

In  dress  or  manner  of  the  girl  who  bore  it. 

If  she  could  form  some  notion  of  her  mother, 

What  she  had  thought  was  lovely  and  what  good. 

This  was  her  mother's  childhood  home; 

The  house  one  storey  high  in  front,  three  storeys 

On  the  end  it  presented  to  the  road. 

(The  arrangement  made  a  pleasant  sunny  cellar.) 

Her  mother's  bedroom  was  her  father's  still, 

Where  she  could  watch  her  mother's  picture  fading. 

Once  she  found  for  a  bookmark  in  the  Bible 


54  THE  YALE  REVIEW 

A  maple  leaf  she  thought  must  have  been  laid 

In  wait  for  her  there.  She  read  every  word 

Of  the  two  pages  it  was  pressed  between 

As  if  it  was  her  mother  speaking  to  her. 

She  forgot  to  put  back  the  leaf  in  closing 

And  lost  the  place  never  to  find  again. 

She  was  sure,  though,  there  had  been  nothing  in  it. 

So  she  looked  for  herself  as  everyone 
Looks  for  himself  more  or  less  outwardly. 
And  her  self-seeking,  fitful  though  it  was, 
May  still  have  been  what  led  her  on  to  read 
And  think  a  little,  and  get  some  city  schooling. 
She  learned  shorthand,  whatever  shorthand  may 
Have  had  to  do  with  it  —  she  sometimes  wondered. 
So  till  she  found  herself  in  a  strange  place 
For  the  name  Maple  to  have  brought  her  to  — 
Taking  dictation  on  a  paper  pad, 
And  in  the  pauses  when  she  raised  her  eyes 
Watching  out  of  a  nineteenth  storey  window 
An  airship  laboring  with  unship-like  motion 
And  a  vague  all-disturbing  roar  above  the  river 
Beyond  the  highest  city  built  with  hands. 
Someone  was  saying  in  such  natural  tones 
She  almost  wrote  the  words  down  on  her  knee, 
"Do  you  know  you  remind  me  of  a  tree  — 
A  maple  tree?" 

"Because  my  name  is  Maple?" 

"Isn't  it  Mabel?  I  thought  it  was  Mabel." 

"No  doubt  you've  heard  the  office  call  me  Mabel. 
I  have  to  let  them  call  me  what  they  like." 

. 

They  were  both  stirred  that  he  should  have  divined 
Without  the  name  her  personal  mystery. 


MAPLE  55 

It  made  it  seem  as  if  there  must  be  something 

She  must  have  missed  herself.  So  they  were  married 

And  took  the  fancy  home  with  them  to  live  by. 

They  went  on  pilgrimage  once  to  her  father's 

(The  house  one  storey  high  in  front,  three  storeys 

On  the  end  it  presented  to  the  road), 

To  see  if  there  was  not  some  special  tree 

She  might  have  overlooked.  They  could  find  none, 

Not  so  much  as  a  single  tree  for  shade, 

Let  alone  grove  of  trees  for  sugar  orchard. 

She  told  him  of  the  bookmark  maple  leaf 

In  the  big  Bible,  and  all  she  remembered 

Of  the  place  marked  with  it  —  "  Wave  offering, 

Something  about  wave  offering,  it  said." 

"You've  never  asked  your  father  outright  have  you?" 
"I  have,  and  been  put  off  sometime,  I  think." 
(This  was  her  faded  memory  of  the  way 
Once  long  ago  her  father  had  put  himself  off.) 

"Because  no  telling  but  it  may  have  been 
Something  between  your  father  and  your  mother 
Not  meant  for  us  at  all." 

"Not  meant  for  me? 

Where  would  the  fairness  be  in  giving  me 
A  name  to  carry  for  life  and  never  know 
The  secret  of?" 

"And  then  it  may  have  been 
Something  a  father  couldn't  tell  a  daughter 
As  well  as  could  a  mother.  And  again 
It  may  have  been  their  one  lapse  into  fancy 
'Twould  be  too  bad  to  make  him  sorry  for 
By  bringing  it  up  to  him  when  too  old. 
Your  father  feels  us  round  him  with  our  questing, 
And  holds  us  off  unnecessarily, 
As  if  he  didn't  know  what  little  thing 


56  THE  YALE  REVIEW 

Might  lead  us  to  discovery. 

It  was  as  personal  as  he  could  be 

About  the  way  he  saw  it  was  with  you 

To  say  your  mother  had  she  lived  would  be 

As  far  again  as  from  being  born  to  bearing." 

"Just  one  look  more  with  what  you  say  in  mind, 
And  I  give  up";  which  last  look  came  to  nothing. 

But  though  they  now  gave  up  the  search  forever 

They  clung  to  what  one  had  seen  in  the  other 

By  inspiration.  It  proved  there  was  something. 

They  kept  their  thoughts  away  from  when  the  maples 

Stood  uniform  in  buckets,  and  the  steam 

Of  sap  and  snow  rolled  off  the  sugar  house. 

When  they  made  her  related  to  the  maple, 

It  was  the  tree  the  autumn  fire  ran  through 

And  swept  of  leathern  leaves,  but  left  the  bark 

Unscorched,  unblackened  even  by  any  smoke. 

They  always  took  their  holidays  in  autumn. 

Once  they  came  on  a  maple  in  a  glade 

Standing  alone  with  smooth  arms  lifted  up 

And  every  leaf  of  foliage  she'd  worn 

Laid  scarlet  and  pale  pink  about  her  feet. 

But  its  age  kept  them  from  considering  this  one. 

Twenty-five  years  ago  at  Maple's  naming 

It  hardly  could  have  been  a  two-leaved  seedling 

The  next  cow  might  have  licked  up  out  at  pasture. 

Could  it  have  been  another  maple  like  it? 

They  hovered  for  a  moment  near  discovery, 

Figurative  enough  to  see  the  symbol, 

But  lacking  faith  in  anything  to  mean 

The  same  at  different  times  to  different  people. 

Perhaps  a  filial  diffidence  partly  kept  them 

From  thinking  it  could  be  a  thing  so  bridal. 

And  anyway  it  came  too  late  for  Maple. 


MAPLE  57 

She  used  her  hands  to  cover  up  her  eyes. 
"We  would  not  see  the  secret  if  we  could  now: 
We  are  not  looking  for  it  any  more." 

Thus  had  a  name  with  a  meaning  given  in  death 
Made  a  girl's  marriage  and  ruled  in  her  life. 
No  matter  that  the  meaning  was  not  clear. 
A  name  with  meaning  could  bring  up  a  child, 
Taking  the  child  out  of  the  parents  hands. 
Better  a  meaningless  name  I  should  say, 
As  leaving  more  to  nature  and  happy  chance. 
Name  children  some  names  and  see  what  you  do. 


. 


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